Blasphemy or Divine Inspiration?

Share

Blasphemy or Divine Inspiration?

You know you're thwacking the powers that be in the kneecaps when you manage to provoke both the pope and the European Parliament at the same time.

Which is what stroppy Swedish photographer and artist Elisabeth Ohlson managed to do with a series of 12 vividly stylized photographs titled Ecce Homo.

The photos depict Christ at various stages in his life, death, and resurrection. So far, no big departure from the rapturous biblical agenda of artists like Caravaggio or Michelangelo. Until you notice that Joseph and Mary are actually Mary and Mary. And that Christ, in another photo, is being bathed by a male in what looks like a gay bathhouse.

Each photo, in fact, depicts Christ in the company of homosexuals. Ohlson, a lesbian, came up with the theme in the early '90s, at a time when several of her friends were dying of AIDS and some Christian groups were characterizing the illness as God's punishment for homosexual "deviance."

"I realized what a great responsibility the church assumes when it issues statements about homosexuals," Ohlson said. "We still live by the morals and ethics of the Bible."

Ecce Homo was shown in Stockholm in 1998 at Sweden's foremost church, Uppsala Cathedral. The decision to show the exhibition there led to the cancellation by the Pope John Paul II of a planned audience with Swedish Archbishop K.G. Hammar. After the exhibition had been on the road for a while in Europe, the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted to cancel it.

The controversy engendered by Ecce Home (on a par with Andre Serrano's Piss Christ, a blown-up photo of a store-bought crucifix standing in a jar of urine) inspired folks at the University of Trollhatten/Uddevalla's Lab for Interaction Technology to exhibit the photos online, and have real-time chatrooms, bulletin boards, and discussion threads, which crisscross the site.

"We wanted to create a community of opinions, a place where people of opposing ideas on the subjects of homosexuality and religion could come together and debate in real time," said Lars Svensson, head researcher at the Lab.

And debate they do, mostly in earnest, and mostly in Swedish. The rest of the site though, has translations in German and English. To get a sense of the tone and texture of the audience commentary, imagine eavesdropping on a breathless busload of Bible thumpers at a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit.

Since the threads are almost all in Swedish, here is some of the commentary in translation:

A July 14 thread labeled "Picture 2: The Manger," from someone called "Dag," the most active writer who posts several entries a day, says "Satan's homo-photographer now places these ... disgraces at a manger to symbolize the birth of Christ – probably in order to canonize these sinners and cover how sinful they are to the will of the Lord. Simply a Satanic trick! – Kindly, Dag (conceived by a man, born by a woman)"

A response, posted by "Europolitan," went like this:

"Dag, don't you have a life? How many hours have you spent here ... you go on and on about the same rubbish all the time. As you might know, the biggest anti-homosexuals ... have homosexual thoughts themselves. So, Gay Dag – please give up and get a life."

"The debate never grows cold," said Svensson, who noted that the Web site had over 7,000 visitors in the first week it opened.

Ohlson has to travel with a bodyguard along with her photos since receiving several death threats, which have also made it necessary for her to remain somewhat incommunicado.